


Like The Old Man Said

by agentandromeda



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Endgame Fix-It, Fix-It, Gen, Nebula and Gamora Kill Thanos, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts - Freeform, Tony doesn't die, because its what they deserve honestly, how it should have ended, natasha is watching over them all and im emotional, not that that's anything new, once again i prove myself a better writer than the russos, the final battle goes a lot better in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 09:32:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18938197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentandromeda/pseuds/agentandromeda
Summary: Tony Stark has always been dedicated to protecting Earth. When he has the chance to destroy Thanos's army with a snap of his fingers, of course he'll take it. It's who he is, and the people who love him won't try to take that choice away from him.But they won't let him suffer its consequences alone. They'll take his hand and suffer through the snap together.





	Like The Old Man Said

**Author's Note:**

> hey kids!! so i was thinking about how the endgame final battle should have gone and wishing there were fic for it and then i realized—if the russos can do it...
> 
> *thanos voice* fine, i'll do it myself

The first time, the snap came out of nowhere. The battle didn’t pause, nor did anyone outside the grove realize what was happening until their arms began to turn to ash and they felt their insides crumble.

This time, it was different. Everyone turned as one, as if their heads were drawn by a magnet, as the titan and the red-gold metal man crashed into each other. Everyone who had turned to dust knew what was about to happen.

They’d been told. The endgame had already been played. All that hung in the balance now was how many pieces would fall. 

“Ms. Potts, ma’am!” 

Pepper gasped as a hand clad in familiar red-gold technology grabbed her by the wrist and began tugging her towards her husband. 

“Kid, where are we going?”

“You have to go to him! Mr. Strange said so! You should be the first to take his hand. Mr. Stark! Don’t snap yet!”

Tony looked up at Peter like just that motion took all the effort of lifting the sky, weariness written across his face in blood and ash, his body spasming with lances of cosmic energy. 

Pepper flew to him, her armor’s reactor whining. 

“I’m here,” she reassured. “You’re not alone.”

She took his hand, and felt the power of the universe race through her bones. She couldn’t even scream; she was paralyzed by pain, by energy frying her brain and body—and then someone took her free hand, and the pain lessened. She looked down to see Peter, tears of pain in his eyes but his jaw set in determination. He looked up at Pepper with a smile.

“Pep, what are you doing?” Tony’s voice was frantic, raspy. “Kid, let go, it’s too much. I have to do this.”

“You do.” Pepper kissed his forehead. “But not alone.”

“You think your friends can save you?” Thanos boomed. “Your cowardice in the face of death has doomed you.”

The mad titan began to rush at them, but was thrown off his feet as two photon blasts sent him tumbling into the dust.

“I’ll hold him off,” Carol called. The star on her chest shone brighter than the dim light seemed to warrant. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

The infinity stones jerked. Some part of them craved destruction and the gauntlet; they didn’t want to be shared. 

Yet shared they were. A pegasus dropped Rhodey at Peter’s side. They grabbed hands, and Rhodey’s breath nearly stopped. It was like the moment of paralysis, but worse. Like every part of him was a vertebra constantly being shattered.

But it was worth it.

“You know,” he told Peter, “I have known him longer than you.”

Peter blanched. “Um, we can switch places, Mr. Rhodes, sir, if you want to—“

Rhodey chuckled and patted Peter’s shoulder with his free hand. Every point of contact was like touching a stove.

“I’m just messing with ya, kid. You know, he probably wouldn’t have agreed to the whole time travel thing if he didn’t want to bring you back so bad.”

Peter looked to Tony, glee overcoming the pain in his eyes.

“Is that true, Mr. Stark?”

“Rhodey’s exaggerating.” Tony paused. “But you deserved a life.”

—————-

Three more people came running—Steve was already holding hands with Bucky, who trailed Sam behind him. Steve took Rhodey’s hand.

He had been near the tesseract and had just a taste of the power it held, and even that exposure had left him tasting blood in his mouth. Next to the power of the stones, that encounter was like a paper cut. It was like a thousand injections of serum. Like he was burning alive from the inside. Yet it wasn’t hard to channel that fire outward, to look at Thanos with burning intensity and triumphant vindication.

He couldn’t save everyone. He had to try. 

“Fuck!” Sam cursed through gritted teeth. “That hurts!” He glanced at Bucky. “Not as bad as the time you ripped out my steering wheel and tossed me across an interstate, though.”

“Will you please let that go,” Bucky muttered. “I don’t even know if that really happened.”

Tony looked down the line with growing hope in his pain-filled eyes. Bucky looked back, expecting to see hatred. Hatred that the man who killed his father dared to share in his pain. Instead, Tony nodded. Maybe Bucky was hallucinating. Or maybe there was a hint of forgiveness there. 

—————-

“This is gonna suck,” Bruce muttered, gazing at Sam’s hand. “Two times in an hour? Ah well.” 

He let the power of the stones wash over him again. Compared to the agony of his snap, this was far better. He could feel everyone in the line and how they blocked the flow. The energy came in knots and snarls, stymied in its effort to find someone to destroy.

—————-

“We do not let warriors endure their greatest trials alone!” a voice boomed. “Asgard, to me!” 

Eyes still crackling with lightning, Thor grasped Bruce’s hand in an iron grip. He roared as the multicolored bolts clashed with his electricity, drowning it out, leaving him powerless. But he was not alone; the warriors of Asgard by his side shared his burden. The line began to curve, forming the beginning of a great circle around their foe.

—————-

“Ah, what the hell,” Peter Quill laughed. His guardians were at his side again, as if they’d never been gone. He beamed at Gamora. “Ready for round two?” 

She stared back at him, uncomprehendingly. 

“Right,” he muttered. He offered a hand. “I know you don’t like being touched, but I also know how much you don’t like your dad.”

Gamora looked at the hand. 

“Hey! Blue and green!”

Gamora and Nebula’s heads snapped up at Tony’s voice. He winked at them.

“How’d you like first crack at Professor Plum here?”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Nebula. 

She nodded at Gamora. Gamora smiled. The sisters walked to the center, weapons drawn. Carol slammed Thanos into the dust again.

“Thanks for the backup.”

The guardians joined the line. They had felt a bit of this power before, and the salt taste of the power stone was familiar, but this was new. New, and horrible. But hope offered a guard against the pain.

—————-

Every shoulder felt the fire flow away from it with the touch of a hand—Wakandan soldiers, forming a web of hands that glowed with the energy of a cosmos coursing through them. In unison, they yelled a battle cry—raw with pain and anger and loss, yet sky-splitting in its ferocity. Everyone’s hearts swelled and beat in time.

——————

“C’mon!” Hope pulled Scott aloft by his ankle. “We have to go!”

“Oh yeah,” Scott called, “wouldn’t miss this party for the world.”

When they landed and regrew, they found Janet and Ava already waiting for them.

“You ready?” Scott jumped up and down, shaking his arms. He still got some nerves every time it was his turn to help make the world safe.

“It’s gonna hurt,” Janet warned. “Maybe cause damage I can’t fix.”

“I am used to pain,” Ava replied. “It will be nice for that pain to come with being a hero.”

They rushed to Rocket’s side. Rocket paid them little mind—his eyes were screwed shut, so he made no snide comment as Hope grasped his paw.

Scott’s only point of comparison was the horrible tearing in his muscles when he grew to giant size. That was what the infinity stones were like —as if his muscles were shredding themselves from the inside out.

“Insolence!” Thanos roared. Gamora roared back and stabbed him in the leg. 

Multicolored lightning shot into the sky, staining the clouds in a pastel that was almost beautiful. 

—————

Clint grasped Scott’s hand and gave him a wink just before the pain nearly brought him to his knees. He thought of Natasha. She’d sacrificed herself for the stone Tony now held. He only hoped that she was watching and finding some peace, knowing she’d saved everyone. Even as he thought of her, the load seemed to lesson.

She would have a funeral, he decided. A funeral with all her family. 

He looked around. That family got bigger and bigger every day.

—————-

Strange looked at Tony and nodded with an enigmatic smile. As he did, one of the wayward bolts of energy pierced him through the chest, suffusing his body with light. The shock caused his astral self to flicker out of his body for a moment, but he soon stabilized. Still, he faltered, and the other sorcerers had to rush to hold back the rush of water. For a moment, Tony was afraid, and then he realized that Strange had chosen to take the bolt; physical contact was not the only way to share the burden. All it required was willingness. Solidarity.

—————-

Thanos swung a powerful arm and knocked Carol and Nebula away from him, then ran like a juggernaut at Tony. Before he got there, a red flash slammed into his chest, knocking him back into Gamora’s waiting knife.

“You took away so much,” Wanda growled, “from so many people.” She held up her hands, fingers twisting around undulating red light. “I wonder how it will feel when everything is taken from you.”

Thanos opened his mouth to answer. His assailants didn’t let him speak. Gamora and Nebula, at the same time, severed the tendons behind his heels, giving him a taste of what the circle felt. The stones were unstable—they would be torn apart, killed, and they all accepted that. And they waited as Gamora, Nebula, and Wanda joined the circle.

—————-

Everyone in the circle had seen infinity stones, even felt their power, yet that was nothing compared to the power of the Space Stone that flowed through Carol’s veins. It was a part of her. It was what made her invulnerable.

She lay her hand on Tony’s shoulder and let that power flow from her. She lent it out to the heroes and the soldiers. She watched as the blue, orange, and yellow light that lived in her blood and bones flowed down the line and through the web. Everyone stood upright with new resolve as they felt the power of an infinity stone work for, not against them. 

The multicolored lightning crackled into a dome. Thanos was in a cage of his own desires.

“As I was saying,” Tony said through gritted teeth, “We. Are. The Avengers.”

He snapped his fingers, and everybody screamed.

—————-

The army crumpled, yet Thanos remained, bloodied and beaten on the ground.

For a moment, he wanted to crow at his invulnerability or preach about how the infinity stones could not kill him, for he was meant to fulfill their purpose. But then he saw Tony’s smirk. Thanos turned in the dust to see the women he had used and tortured stalking towards him with murder in their eyes, and he understood. His death was a needed mercy.

Thanos’s blood soaked into the dust. 

Tony collapsed with exhaustion into Pepper’s arms, his right arm blackened. Everyone fell away with one another—each bore the scar of the infinity stones, a black mark surrounded by multicolored scar tissue. 

“We won, Mr. Stark! You did it!”

“We did it, kid,” Tony muttered.

“Ssshhhh,” Pepper told him. She stroked his hair. “You can rest now.”

Tomorrow there would be treatments and celebrations and awkward conversations. But for now, Tony slept.


End file.
